Awhile back, I added an in-app purchase to Numerology Lite so a user could get the full functionality of Numerology without making a separate trip to the App Store and buying it. At the time Numerology was doing quite well, near the top 100 Lifestyle apps in the U.S. App Store. I was looking for a way to further increase sales and an in-app purchase seemed like a good idea. Lots of successful apps were doing it.

So I put it in. Right away Numerology sales went down and Numerology Lite sales went up. They got to the point where their sales were basically the same, so same sales, no harm done. Or so I thought.

Then my average sales per day started going down. Some days Lite sales would be higher than the full version. Then Lite sales started to go down some days and the full sales would be up. Overall, though, sales were down and this is not what I wanted.

I realized that by dividing sales amongst two apps I had caused the ranking of the full version to go down. As its ranking went down, so did its sales. The lite version ranking wasn’t high enough at the start to be affected, and its ranking didn’t help its sales.

So, I decided to take the in-app purchase out of Numerology Lite. The update has been submitted and hopefully approved soon. This will focus all sales into the full version and I hope bring its ranking back up. I may have to work at it again and use updates, ads, press releases, etc. to help bring it back to its previous sales. I’ve already added features to make it easier for users to send me feedback, give reviews, and share on Twitter as well as Facebook. I’ve added analytics as well to help me track user actions, especially when the tap the button that takes them to the store to buy the full app.

The lesson here is, if you have a full app and a trial or lite app, don’t add an in-app purchase to the lite version thinking it will help. You’ll damage your full version sales and your ranking. However, if you’re starting a new app I think in-app purchase is still something to consider as long as everything is in one app. That app will be free and more people will download it and it will be easier for them to make the purchase to upgrade to the full version.

Look for the new version of Numerology and Numerology Lite to be in the App Store soon.